If You Are New to Reef Central, Introduce Yourself Here!

[Oropher]

Hi folks. I'm Narto from Indonesia.

I'm new in this hobby and I have lots to ask you folks.
I'm to be inherited a 24L nano all in 1 tank because my brother didn't want to keep on tanking anymore.

I bought 2 pieces of live rocks. And I dipped them in Revive solution, got many hitchhikers such as crabs, worms, and many other things coming out of those rocks. Because of this, I kinda even more worried about those rocks. Worry about they may still host many critters or other scary thing.

So I put those rocks in a bucket with a power head inside to agitate the salt water. Put the metal cover and place it in the middle of my backyard, so during the day sun would heat them. I didn't test the initial water parameter but after 24 hours test result was: Ammo 0, Nitrite 0, Nitrate 12.5 ppm.

Need your suggestion folks
A. do I keep on curing those rocks in the bucket for the next 4-8 weeks or
B. should I drop some ammonia to kill the critters that may still reside. As far as I understand, ammonia won't kill bacteria and neither the coralline algae but (assuming) will kill leftover hitchhickers, and then continue curing until no ammonia, no nitrite and nitrate isn't rising anymore.

Thank you for read this chatter and I even grateful for your advise.

Cheers.

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

 

[shelley0]

Hello everyone

Hello everyone

I am new to the forum and the hobby, I have been researching for a little over a year, and finally decided to start my tank. I eventually want to have a living coral tank, they mesmerize me. I have a 60 gallon marine aquarium already, it has a few inhabitants, and coral, but I want one for coral only, and a clean up crew.

 

[LandlordReefer]

Back in the saddle again

Back in the saddle again

I was in the hobby back in 1995-2005 and left when I moved out into a farmhouse out in the country (power outages freak anyone else out?)

So a decade later and my kids are now old enough to want fish and I'm just not a neon tetra kind of guy...so I showed them the coral areas at the fish store and now I'm back into the hobby with a 72 gallon bow front (and as soon as I announced I was back into the hobby on FB a friend IM'd me and offered me a 125 gallon setup)

I see LED technology has become the standard lighting option, if anyone has a great DIY thread for a setup that's my first project.

Great to be back,

Andrew

 

[TheCamaroShow]

Hi Everyone my name is Chayse and I'm new on here I have a very modded biocube 29 sps and lps mainly and a 90g freshwater tank.

 

[Aquariumjim]

Lo everyone

Lo everyone

My names Jim I'm 32 live in UK, London.

I have 3 tanks a 20l Betta tank, A 250L fresh water tank and a Red Sea reefer 350.

It used to be a FOWLR tank but I have just purchased a Radion XR15 and plan to start keeping some coral.

I checked my water parameters and rushed off to my LFS to buy some frags. Just to watch the pocilapora bleach out and a candy cane shrink and loose half its heads

Needless to say I'm gonna be need your help guys!

 

[megandy]

My wife and I have been in the hobby for 2.5 years. We started with a 28 gal JBJ Nano, but about 5 weeks ago we moved everything over to a 65 gallon oceanic with sump.

We have a ton of coral in our tank. Most are just frags that we hope to grow out, but a few are established colonies that we moved over from the nano.

Zoas:
Scrambled egg (established colony)
Rasta (established colony)
Ring of fire (established colony)
Blue tubbs (several large frags)
Gatorade (frag)
Bam bams (frag)
Gobstopper (frag)
Generic red (established colony)
Boobie trap (frag)

Acans:
Green/orange (established colony)
Purple/orange (established colony)
Red/blue (frag)
Iron Man (frag)

Acro:
Green (established but small)
Pink (frag)
Green/blue bird's nest (frag)

Lepto:
Neon green (frag)

Monti:
Rainbow (frag)
Sunset (frag)
Mystic sunset (established colony, regrowing after a down turn)
Superman (frag)
Green/blueish (frag)
Plate, green (frag)
Spongodes, green/brown (frag)

Mushrooms:
Ricordia orange (frag)
Ricordia blueish (frag)
Green striped (established colony, but thinned after the move)
Red (established colony, but thinned after the move)

Favia:
War (bicolor) (frag)
Red (frag)
Christmas (frag)

Other miscellaneous:
Black sun coral (established but small)
Cyphastria meteor shower (frag)
Duncan (frag)
Hammerhead bicolor (frag)
Photosynthetic gorgonia (pinkish) (established but small)
Pavona green (frag)
Plate coral (over 2" diameter & growing)
Pulsing Xenia (frag)
Green/brown paly (frag)
Green Star Polyp (established colony)


As for fish and other inhabitants, we have:
Spotcinctus clown pair bonded with rainbow bubble tip anemone
Oscillaris clown pair (one nuvinci, one black/orange, I forget the name)
5 blue green chromis
Long finned fairy wrasse
Ruby headed fairy wrasse
Tomini tang
Candi pistol shrimp bonded with High fin banded goby
A handful of cleanup crew (peppermint shrimp, cleaner shrimp, emerald crabs, turbo snails, nassarius snails)
Sand sifting starfish
Blue velvet tuxedo urchin
Rock flower anemone

With the coral, we plan to frag each frag as soon as it gets big enough, then grow out one frag as a mother colony for future fragging, and grow one in the main tank as a permanent inhabitant. We will need a bigger tank eventually

We built the stand ourselves. We are trying to keep everything contained to the single tank and a sump with partitions for a refugium and a frag grow-out section. We are getting ready to build a new sump for this plan.

We are very lucky to have had the chance to trade for a lot of the coral listed because the scrambled egg and Rasta colonies are so prolific, I can't even sell/trade them as fast as they grow in my tank. So, whether we traded one-for-one, or used sales to buy new frags, we have kept our costs to a minimum.

Other equipment includes: two strips of Orbit Current Loop, an Orbit Eflux powerhead, Jebao DCP-6500 sump pump, and another older powerhead. We use the ramp up and ramp down function on the lights, and the brightest daylight is set for about 6-7 hours. The eflux powerhead is on a quick surge of about 1.5 second power cycle. The fish and the anemone seem to love it. We also have a cheaper LED box above the sump for the grow out frags and the refugium.

In the refugium we have chaeto, dragon's breath, ceramic rings that we moved over from the nano, and a lot of live rock. We are trying to get a good copepod community going so that we can eventually add a dragonette goby. In the new sump that we are building, we will probably include some sand in the refugium.

We tend to go light on the water changes and heavy on monitoring parameters. We keep track of calcium, magnesium, and KH, as well as nitrates and our pH stays around 8.2. We keep the temperature at about 78-80, which I'm experimenting with since I read that corals tend to do better in 78-80 rather than getting up to 82+. Dosing includes Seachem vibrance and fuel, occasional balance, calcification, and/or ions. We were dosing nitrate for the coral because it was sitting at zero ppm, but now we just feed more often and that's doing the trick. Ammonia and nitrite stay at 0. We do use carbon filter media (Chemipure blue) in our sump with the combo of a filter sock, sponge block, and the biological stuff.

Picture is from a couple weeks ago before we added a bunch more of the frags listed. We are excited to join the forum and can't wait to learn more and share our experiences with y'all!

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

 

[Hawaiian FOWLR]

Aloha Reef Central

Aloha Reef Central

Aloha everyone! I'm new to the forum, as well as to fish keeping. I have a 29 gallon tank with a few pieces of live rock from Moloka'i. They came with small crab hitch-hiker who likes to hide in a small growth on the rock.

I'm currently allowing my tank to cycle and researching what I'd like to put in it. Originally I thought I would only collect fish that were endemic to Hawaii, however, now I think my goal is to only stock the aquarium with fish collected from Hawaiian waters. I'll ask more specific questions in another forum, but just thought I'd introduce myself and say hello!

 

[Flipb18b]

I've been reefing for a little over six years now. So now I never joined reef central. I currently have a nuvo 16 that's softies and zoas and a jbj 30 that I'm starting to fill with sps's.

 

[Swipular]

Hello!

Hello!

Hi everyone:

I'm new here, been doing freshwater for over 10 years but at the urging of my daughter, I'm converting an 80 gal tall to saltwater.

So, just learning about all the difference with saltwater and hanging out here soaking up all the knowledge.

 

[Kat_Ram2003]

Newbie!

Newbie!

Hi there, I've been a fish nerd my entire life, starting out with tanks when I was 13 or so....now that I'm approaching my late 40's, I figure it's time to go for my goal of having a reef tank - I've been fascinated with them forever!:dance:
So, I'm starting with a 50 gal cube tank, not drilled, going to start with a canister filter, and see where my addiction takes me, lol! In the research stage now...so much to learn, but this forum is FANTASTIC!
Looking at 2-3" of live sand, and live rock, with a few Zoanthids and elegance corals, a couple of "easy" fish, and a good clean up crew.
Thanks for all of the great information!

 

[iiiTRiBEiii]

greetings!

greetings!

First post to say hello, there are so many forums and sites that pertain to aquariums and having browsed these forums as a guest I think Reef Central looks top notch with a great community. Glad to be a part and hope to contribute what little I can.


Tank: 55 brackish (1.005 - 1.010) w/ 15 Red Mangroves
mollies, knight goby and sheepshead minnow (eventually and archer or two)
2 fluval 206, C02 installed but not currently active

 

[moonphaz]

New-ish

New-ish

I have come to this site for several years when I had questions, but never formally took part. We had a reef tank, had trouble so changed to fresh water and didn't like it so went back to reef tank. We have had our reef tank up and running now for about 3 months with all water perimeters staying perfect, soft corals (anthelia, torch, mushrooms, green & brownstar polyps, branched frogspawn all doing awesome & growing beautifully. We have a clean-up crew of 2 emerald crabs, 1 cleaner shrimp, 1 astraea turbo & 2 nassarius snails, a Black/white with orange face clown, green clown goby & a bi-color blenny along with a few hitch-hiker brittle worms and mussels. All are doing well. We just got the starfish and I am concerned because I told the LFS that the tank was 3 mos old, but doing well with good levels/healthy tank and they said it would be o.k. He had gone to the top of the tank and is partially out of the water, which they said to be careful not to let air get to him after I acclimated him to our tank (drip acclimated for 1 hour) and put him in. I was careful not to touch him and didn't let him get any air, but now he is doing it himself. Should I be worried? What do I do?

 

[moonphaz]

Oh - BTW the starfish is a black-tipped red star.

 

[moonphaz]

I have one mangrove I was trying in my 30 gal reef nano. It is turning reddish brown but still is green too. I started getting one white root, but it turned red too. All the leaves fell off the very top (it is above the water by about 2 inches and doesn't appear to be doing anything much. Is it dying? I know they apparently grow very slowly, but I don't know what to expect. My nitrates are zero in my tank, hoping that's because the mangrove is doing it's job. Thoughts?

 

[Angeloli]

hello guys,I'm from Taiwan.
a new guy in reef tank.

 

[KCSUMPS]

New to Reefing well, after 30 years it seems all new...

New to Reefing well, after 30 years it seems all new...

Kids are moving out and have some time again. Picked up several tanks and equipment as I begin to learn about reefing after about 30 years since my last saltwater tank in 1987. Wow! Things have changed!

:thumbsup:

Currently researching how to build the stand I want for my 90 and 55 sump and where I can find Pukani rock...

 

[Grootzilla]

Hey everyone!
I'm Jasper (or Jazz). I have always been interested in starting my own reef but now that I have a steady(ish) job that will get me the funds nessesary to begin this awesome hobby I've begun reaserching like crazy. I don't have a tank or anything yet. I've mostly been calculating cost and reaserching equipment. I already have a good idea ok what I want in my tank and how big I'd want it (30-40gal). I am trying to decide if building my own stand is worth it so that I will be able to customize how I set up my sump right underneath the display tank while still containing some storage for water quality testing kits and other miscellaneous things I will need over just buying one. My father use to be a carpenter so I'm sure if I asked him and explained what I wanted he would do it no problem. But yeah. I am super exited. I plan to start my reef within the next 3-6 months with just soft corals and adding fish and whatnot later. Aaaaaaa.

 

[RapaNui]

Hellllooooooo Reef Central.

New to salt water tanks and new to RC as well.

My brother in law has(d) a 130L saltwater tank that he got when he was living in his apartment. He bought a house about a year ago that came with a much larger built in tank together with an RO water system etc. He got married and had a kid and as such the demands have been big to maintain two tanks.

He generously offered to have his sister, my fiancee, take the tank.

So here we go on the next big aquarium adventure.
Going to be doing a lot of reading and asking of questions.

Pics to follow.

Ciao

RapaNui

 

[ernestivy]

Hey all! The wife and kids got me a fish tank for my birthday! I'm new to the hobby. 60 gallon tank. Will start fresh water.

Sent from my K88 using Tapatalk

 

[Dugthefish]

Attempting to rediscover the joys and pains of saltwater with a 125g reef. Ran several tanks 15 years ago, 75g soft/LPS, 75 gal FOWLR/lionfish tank, 40g clownfish tank, etc. Life dictated that continuing this hobby had to end in 2004 or so, and now life has given me the opportunity to try again. Going for a lot more DIY this time, run a shoestring budget, and see what some time and patience comes up with